15.2 million excess credits, a registry withdrawal, and months of warning signals

The Problem: Warning Signs Hidden in Plain Sight

The Kariba REDD+ Project in Zimbabwe was one of the world's largest forest conservation schemes, covering 785,000 hectares. It was also one of the biggest carbon credit scandals in history. In September 2024, Verra determined that 15.2 million credits — 55% of total issuance — were excess and did not represent real emission reductions.

By the time the scandal made headlines at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, corporations including Gucci, Volkswagen, and Nestlé had already used over 10.3 million of these excess credits to claim carbon neutrality.

The warning signs were there for months. But they were scattered across dozens of sources — rating agency reports, registry filings, investigative journalism, and community complaints. No single platform was aggregating these signals in real time.

What VCM.fyi's AI Detected

VCM.fyi's weekly forensic scanning identified 7 critical findings on VCS902, each categorized and scored for market impact:

Integrity

Verra confirms 15.2M excess credits (55% of issuance)

September 2024 • Bearish impact

Regulatory

Carbon Green Investments withdraws project from Verra registry

May 2024 • Bearish impact

Social

Only a fraction of €100M revenue reached local communities

March 2024 • Bearish impact

Market

South Pole terminates contract, citing governance concerns

October 2023 • Bearish impact

Integrity

BeZero downgrades to lowest rating ('D'), then delists entirely

October 2023 • Bearish impact

The Timeline: What Traditional Due Diligence Missed

October 2023

South Pole terminates partnership. BeZero downgrades to 'D'. First major warning signs.

March 2024

Investigation reveals €86M of €100M revenue absorbed by intermediaries, not communities.

May 2024

CGI withdraws from Verra registry entirely. No future issuances to claw back.

September 2024

Verra formally confirms 15.2M excess credits. Requests CGI buy and cancel equivalent volume.

January 2026

Davos 2026 white papers cite VCS902 as primary example of "junk credits."

Between October 2023 and January 2026, there was a 27-month window where active monitoring would have allowed buyers to exit their positions, avoid new purchases, or challenge their brokers. VCM.fyi's forensic system captured each of these signals as they emerged.

Who Was Affected?

VCM.fyi's buyer intelligence tracked the organizations that retired Kariba credits. Among them:

Shell — largest single buyer across the VCM (38.5M total credits)
Gucci / Guccio Gucci S.p.A — 2M+ credits from Kariba
Greenchoice — 4.7M credits, Netherlands energy retailer
ENGIE — 1.5M credits across multiple projects

Each of these organizations could have been alerted months before the scandal broke — if they had real-time forensic monitoring in place.

What This Means for Your Portfolio

Kariba is not an isolated case. It is a pattern. Projects with governance issues, inflated baselines, or community conflicts leave trails in public sources long before formal reviews conclude. VCM.fyi scans these sources every week across 11,000+ projects, categorizing findings by type and scoring them for market impact.

How VCM.fyi helps

Pre-trade screening: AI forensic memos with risk ratings before you buy
Post-trade monitoring: Watchlist alerts when news breaks on your projects
Proponent risk analysis: 5-pillar counterparty scoring on project developers
Buyer intelligence: See who else holds the same credits and their activity patterns

View VCS902 Intelligence → Book a Demo

Case Study: Kariba REDD+ (VCS902) — How AI Forensics Tracks the Warning Signs